NFL playoffs gave a weekend to remember

Monday

Jan 14, 2013 at 3:24 PM

Dennis Miller

Wow, what an epic weekend of NFL football! The Baltimore Ravens and Denver Broncos got things off to a bang on Saturday by playing one of the most thrilling football games I have seen in a long time. Both teams left everything they had on the field in Denver Saturday night and it’s a shame that someone had to lose that game. The Ravens are a team on a mission and are very well coached and seem to have gotten their offensive issues worked out in a major way when it matters most. They definitely showed a lot of heart and determination in persevering last Saturday.

The San Fransisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers game was an exciting game for almost three quarters before the 49ers were able to pull away for an impressive victory. The 49ers are another team that struggled offensively at various times this season but seem to have gotten that issue solved and may be able to ride it all the way to the Super Bowl.

The Seattle Seahawks dug a deep hole for themselves in Atlanta during the first half of their game with the Falcons on Sunday and almost managed to climb all the way out of it. The Falcons had to hang on for their lives to hold off the Seahawks in what started out being a blowout but ended in dramatic fashion. In my opinion, the Falcons are going to have to play much better defense over the entire four quarters to beat the 49ers next Sunday.

The final game of the weekend went pretty much as I expected it to go. The New England Patriots are a veteran team who are used to being in these pressure situations and simply had too many weapons they could use against the Houston Texans who tried to make a game of it but simply didn’t have enough firepower or the defensive capabilities to overcome the Patriots. The Texans are developing into an excellent team but need to address their defensive shortcomings during this off season if they want to become the well rounded team they need to be to win an AFC championship.

While the Broncos and Ravens were finishing up their epic battle on Saturday the Missouri Tigers basketball team was laying a giant egg in Oxford, Mississippi. Every college basketball team seems to play one clunker a year and hopefully Missouri got theirs out of the way last Saturday against Ole Miss. Missouri could do nothing right and really should have just stayed home. They looked horrible offensively and not much better defensively. I understand Lawrence Bowers their leading scorer and team leader was out with an injury but that is no excuse for shooting air ball after air ball and failing to get back on defense or really even attempting to play it for the most part. It was a pathetic effort by a team who is much better than that against a team who quite honestly isn’t very good. Missouri has now gotten their first win and loss in the SEC out of the way in less than a week and hopefully can get back to playing the way they are supposed to play on Wednesday when the Georgia Bulldogs come to Columbia.

The Truman State basketball teams split their games with Emporia on Saturday at Pershing Arena. The women looked very impressive in putting away a very good Emporia State team to notch their 12th victory of the season against only two losses. The men did everything but win as they absorbed another tough loss against a very good Emporia State team. Both teams are on the road Wednesday as they travel to Topeka, KS to play Washburn.

The Kirksville High School Tigers basketball teams also split a double header over the weekend as the girls easily defeated Highland on Friday night while the boys struggled offensively and came up on the short end of their game with Highland.

Congratulations to the Kirksville High School wrestling team on an outstanding performance at the Centerville Big Red tournament this past Saturday. They hit the mats again on Tuesday for a home meet which would be an excellent opportunity for you to get out and see some excellent high school wrestling.

We will be back on Wednesday with our midweek blog with various musings on things in the sports world we haven’t had the time to talk about with everything else that has been going on. Thanks as always for supporting this blog and I hope wou will do the same for the other blogs on this site as well.